Star Wars

Episode VIII, The Last Jedi

The Skywalker saga continues as the heroes of The Force Awakens join the galactic legends in an epic adventure. Having taken her first steps into the Jedi world, Rey joins Luke Skywalker on an adventure with Leia, Finn and Poe that unlocks mysteries of the Force and secrets of the past.

Visually stunning and full of surprises... and that is the only positive feedback I can muster. Most of those surprises are totally unsatisfying and often hard to believe when you have a minute to think them through. So much potential was wasted (this movie spits on and laughs at both the Original Trilogy and The Force Awakens) and the future of the Saga is now very much in doubt. There are many specifics I could list, but that would take forever so I will mostly address one issue.
SPOILERS - READ NO FURTHER IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT
It has been claimed that this movie is dominated by "strong female characters" and this is further used as an excuse to attack anyone who dislikes the movie by calling them sexist. I would counter that this movie is NOT dominated by strong female characters. Let's briefly examine the women of this movie:
*The Bomber gunner: She seemed like a strong female character, but she died in scene 1 with no lines.
*The A-wing pilot: Also probably strong, but she is on screen for about 10 seconds total before dying.
*Captain Phasma: Criminally wasted. She's cool, but she has like 90 seconds of screen time and then dies in a weirdly cheep way.
*Leia: In the original trilogy she WAS strong. Now she is is wishy-washy, is needlessly outshined by other characters, and she only uses her inexplicably-epic force powers to help herself, never anyone else (even when they were trapped and needed someone to move rocks).
*Rose: Prone to radically unpredictable mood swings, terrible at focusing on the big picture, has deeply strange priorities (vandalize a town when your friends are running for their lives, and rescue animals instead of children??), her last act in the movie is basically treasonous, and her last line is one of the most ridiculously-out-of-place lines ever. Finn WAS trying to save those he loves, and this is STAR WARS.
*Vice Admiral Haldo: Perhaps the worst military commander in any fictional story I have ever consumed. She senselessly belittles and alienates the man who saved the entire Resistance twice in the last 12 hours, she is secretive in a way all but guaranteed to breed mistrust and destroy morale, her command philosophy appears to be "shut off your brain and obey" which is essentially how the bad guys operate, and her only positive act showed the filmmaker's total misunderstanding of how hyperspace works and pretty much ruins all future space battles.
*Rei: Ok, finally we have a genuinely strong female character who has a major part to play. I also find her likable and I want to root for her. Sadly, she was kind of a Mary Sue BEFORE we learned that there is no legitimate reason for her to be ludicrously talented at absolutely everything. Including swimming. When she grew up in a desert.
So there you have it. I feel that this movie is NOT dominated by Strong female characters. I would ALSO argue that it has no genuinely strong MALE characters either. The explanation for Luke's total collapse as a hero is very very hard to swallow, Snoke's death is just silly given the level of power and perception he had already displayed, Hux and Finn have mostly been reduced to comic relief, Kylo is lame and unstable compared to Snoke, Chewie is barely there, and Poe's entire character arc is the tragic breaking of a bold, brave hero into a spineless and tactically-foolish weakling. When your mission is all-or-nothing & do-or-die, retreat is absolutely inexcusable. That was SO irritating to watch.
For those who read this entire rant... Thanks? Now go watch something you will genuinely enjoy!

Luke Skywalker is wholly and absurdly wasted on this Gargantuan Letdown of a film! His climactic battle COULD have been the redeeming factor of the new Trilogy AND the pitiful Jar Jar Binks years. They underestimated his Power. Kylo Ren is and always will be a wussy child unworthy of Sith Lord. Why was this lesson not learned with Hayden Christiansen??? I expected more from Rian Johnson, being fans of Brick and Looper, but he shouldn't be trusted with his own spin-off trilogy after this. And yes the storylines in Heir to the Empire and Jedi Academy books are way better than these weak battles of the Last 2 "Jedis".

An outstanding film that proves Disney's tactic of hiring great directors with a distinct style and point-of-view will make for better movies. Rian Johnson tells a Star Wars story that breaks the series out of its comfortable mold (assuming we all agree that The Force Awakens was incredibly fun, but essentially a quasi-remake of Episode IV). Luke Skywalker is a crotchety old man living on the edge of the universe, sitting on the sidelines as the New Order asserts dominance over the galaxy. I feel like this portrayal of one of cinema's greatest heroes is at the heart of all of the backlash for the Last Jedi (well, that and the insanely misguided idea that having Star Wars anchored by strong female characters is somehow politics being jammed down our throats. If you want a shining example of toxic masculinity in our culture, look no further). It's a hard pill to swallow, but ultimately it's the most interesting storytelling decision that could have been made. The new trilogy is all about establishing the new heroes as successors to the group who saved the galaxy from the Empire in the original trilogy, and Johnson does a great job giving us heroes we can care about in Rey, Finn, Poe, and Rose. He also gives us a complicated and conflicted villain in Kylo Ren, torn between his dual lineages of good and evil. Whereas Darth Vader just annihilated planets and choked dudes out until Return of the Jedi, Kylo displays flashes of humanity that gets us to buy in to his struggle. It's easily the most emotionally charged Star Wars movie, and maybe that's why I was so blown away walking out of the theater, agonizing over the fact that I had to wait two more years for the follow-up.

Great special effects, but otherwise a disaster, and a huge disservice to the characters of the originals.

If Disney had actually used stuff from the Expanded Universe (EU) books/games more fans wouldn't be angry because they were way better, and have good character development, not some whiny existential nihilist BS. The fans are angry because they threw out all the stuff many of us nerds had come to know that was a good overall story arch over the decades. So please stop using the sexist or racist card towards those of us who read. We did our homework, read the books, and have logical reasons we don't like it that we can solidly argue intelligently. In the EU the Solos have 3 kids, Luke has a green lightsaber and teaches Jedi, Chewie dies saving the Solo kids, Leia has a lightsaber and is learning the force, Lando has a ship called The Lady Luck, and Mara Jade marries Luke after killing his clone. The character development in the EU is far better, more complex and more interesting.

Rian Johnson should never make another film. The only people I know that like this film are trolling hipsters that never read anything in the EU and want to seem cool or edgy. They are the posers not the hardcore fans.

Disney has a long history of often taking things and dumbing them down to the lowest, sometimes crowd pleasing, common denominator. In this case SW Episode 1 is better despite being the 2nd worst film, but at least it gets 2 stars. Rogue One and Solo are decent, but The Last Jedi is an unfiltered garbage, sewage-filled dumpster fire.

Read the Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn (Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command). It's what the sequels were supposed to be. Legends term be damned. It's my canon, and you'll enjoy it more (and hopefully make it yours). I promise.

There is much that can be said (and has been said) about The Last Jedi, from admiration of its sometimes astonishing visuals to denigration of its sometimes asinine plot. What I found most striking about it (admittedly watching it for the first time at home, on a small screen) was its general air of cynicism, leading to the suspicion that I cared more about these characters than the filmmakers did, and suggesting that this is the point where Star Wars ceases to be a saga and becomes just another franchise.

Roughly 2 hours of fan service -- a patchwork of "wouldn't it be cool if X did or said Y", regardless of whether Y contributes to a coherent tone or narrative -- and half an hour of interesting moments. Pretty disappointing coming from Rian Johnson (I strongly recommend 'Looper', if you're interested in watching a more successful science fiction film from this writer/director).

Major portions of the plot are absurd (the whole codebreaker subplot makes no sense at all -- sneaking into a space ship is like sneaking into a submarine; how, exactly, do Finn and Rose get away from the Rebel ship that's being hotly pursued, fly to an entirely other star system, try to find a James-Bond-esque superspy, go to jail, hook up with a shady character, fly back to the ongoing pursuit...I'm just going to stop now because every single element of this is silly). There used to be a basic understanding that stars and planets are really, really far apart, and some gestures towards the notion that it would take time to get from one to another; now characters hop from one star system to another as if they were driving between neighborhoods. I know that this is space opera, the most loosey-goosey of science fiction subgenres, but the earlier movies weren't so cavalier about it and were more engaging as a result. It's hard to connect with the emotional circumstances when the physical reality is so unreal.

I appreciate giving prominent roles to women and POC. I just wish the substance of the movie was as good as its (real world) cultural politics.